The Wisconsin women’s tennis team went into the weekend with the chance to match, if not exceed, its 3-9 conference record from a year ago, but matches against two top-50 teams proved to be the end of that goal.

Sunday marked the Badgers’ regular season finale at Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison where UW looked to avenge a 5-2 loss to the Illini last season. Wisconsin has not beaten Illinois since 2011.

Illinois struck first, taking the doubles point in two close matches by a combined 3 games. The No. 3 doubles pairing of Becca Bailey and Sydney Rider fell 8-7. The No. 1 pairing of Lauren Chypyha and Lauren Burich followed with an 8-6 loss leaving the No. 2 doubles match unfinished as the Fighting Illini clinched the point.

Illinois jumped to a 2-0 lead when Jerricka Boone beat Bailey 6-3, 6-0 in the No. 6 singles matchup.

Wisconsin picked up its first point of the match when Chypyha took down Allison Falkin 6-0, 6-4 in the No. 1 singles match, bringing the Badgers within one point of the Illini. With the win, Chyphyha improves to 25-9 overall in singles matches.

Illinois and Wisconsin would trade points as the Illini would take the No. 4 singles point and the Badgers would pick up the No. 2 singles point bringing the match to 3-2 mark.

The No. 3 singles match proved to be the decisive one as Melissa Kopinski would take down Burich 6-3, 6-1 to give Illinois a 4-2 lead and secure the win over Wisconsin.

The Illini would take the No. 4 singles point to bring the final to 5-2, handing the Badgers their seventh-straight loss.

In its first match of the weekend, Wisconsin faced a No. 12 Northwestern team that it has taken only two points from in regular season matches since 2004.

Northwestern quickly took the doubles point with 8-3 and 8-2 wins in the No. 1 and No. 3 matchups respectively to take an early 1-0 lead.

The Wildcats took the No. 6 singles point first as Nida Hamilton took care of Bailey 6-1, 6-2.

Northwestern took the No. 4 singles point next and followed up with a win in the No. 3 matchup to clinch the victory for the away squad.

In the No. 1 singles match, Wisconsin’s Chypyha put an early scare into No. 34-ranked Corning taking the first set 4-6. Corning would respond, though, taking the next two sets both by a score of 6-3.

Wisconsin would fail to take a match from Northwestern, giving the Wildcats a 7-0 win over the Badgers for the second year in a row.

With the regular season slate over, Wisconsin will travel to Evanston, Ill., for the Big Ten Tournament where it will take on No. 6 Minnesota. The Golden Gophers lost a three-way tiebreaker with Illinois and Indiana to take the sixth seed.

In the only meeting between the two teams, Minnesota came away with a 4-3 win on its home court. The Golden Gophers come into the conference tournament on a two-game losing skid.

Wisconsin will face off with Minnesota Thursday at 2 p.m. The winner will take on No. 3 seed Ohio State. The Badgers fell to the Buckeyes 6-1 in the regular season.